How to Write Poetry?

Your ultimate guide!

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

If you’re looking for bullet points that will magically make you a poet then sorry to break this to you but this piece is not for you. Asking how to write poetry is like asking how to speak — I cannot explain. I can teach you in theory but the real emotion-stirring poetry flows naturally… as natural as the air we breathe and the heart that beats… Oops! Did not mean to sound poetic here ;)

• If you are a Grammar Nazi, I respect you but being so in Poetry — ah! won’t it defeat the whole purpose of expressing yourself through the power of words? Poetry makes us free — isn’t being a Grammar Nazi all about rules? I’d rather save them for my 9–5 blog posts or copies.
• I like my poetry raw — sometimes, I do not even feel like editing it because that’ll mean I am letting my mind come in between the articulation of my heart. I want my heart to speak up without my thoughts interfering. There is a psychoanalytic technique in Psychology called ‘free association’ — it is all about expressing yourself without any filters or censors (in a very layman language). That is how I’d like to perceive my poetry — just want to voice my heart.
• Deep, sappy, dark, depressing — look out for people who label your poetry or you with such words/adjectives. Don’t let this stop you from unleashing the real YOU by weaving words straight from your deepest of the parts. The deeper your poetry, the more self-aware you are — one of the few wisest beings.
• Stop writing what the world expects you to write — you think that the world does not get allured by sad endings? It does not matter — choose that if you want to. Want to write about a fictional world or an imagined alternate reality of your life? Well, why not?

My point is — words, ideas, surface thoughts, society, expectations — all of these things and more won’t make you a good poet. It is only your heart and your thoughtlessness that can take you a long way. After all, if you think about it — the whole world is nothing but a blissfully convoluted Poem!